10 Messages For My Children
Hey kiddos.
I’m just thinking about you again. You know, Dad things.
A big ‘Dad’ responsibility is sharing ideas and advice to help you along life’s journey. And sometimes I wish I could share some of the things that I’m learning as an adult. But there’s two problems:
Most of the things would bore you at nine and six years of age. :)
And I can only hope that I’m around to share them with you in the future.
Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. And it would break my heart to not be able to guide you, in some way. So for now, I’ve scribbled down some thoughts and resources that you should check out sometime in your first 30-or-so years.
I love you forever. No matter life’s ups and downs, successes and failures, achievements and mistakes – you can always know that somebody loves you to Neptune and back and that you’re eternally deserving of a fulfilling life.
I love you forever,
- Your Dad
1. You must be the master of your own kingdom.
(Video // Extreme Ownership)
You don’t control everything around you. In life, you are certain to be the victim of many circumstances beyond your control – other people’s decisions, criticisms, expectations, demands, and actions.
But you can’t go around bumping into things and being pushed into a direction.
You are the master of your life.
You can say yes. You can say no. You can accept criticism, or disagree with it. You can choose a friendship, or choose to not be a part of a relationship or group that doesn’t make you feel good.
Your life is not intended to serve others. Your life, your relationships, your food, your hobbies, your routines, your city, your job, your home… are intended to serve you.
Your happiness matters. And you get to make the choices to serve the life that you want to live. And that still applies if you choose a life of service to others – whether it’s to be a nurse, a fireman, a doctor, a missionary, or a social worker.
You’ll always be stronger for others when you’ve made sure you’re strong, first.
2. Build good habits.
(The Power of Habit // Atomic Habits // Triggers // The Talent Code)
The things you do each day will shape the person you become. So be extremely careful of your habits and how they might impact your trajectory in life.
I’m saying this as somebody who often has bad habits –
This isn’t a call to perfection. Instead, it’s a call to self-awareness. At the very least, understanding the things that trigger your actions and your default responses to them.
Your habits can be built a number of ways:
The friends in your life. Or the co-workers. Or your partners. (Who do you hang out with the most often? How do they make you feel? Do they lift you up? Do they motivate you towards action? Do they value adventure? Do they make you strive to be a better person?)
The things you default to doing to fill the time. (Your morning habits. Your evening habits. What do you default to doing when you’re bored? Do you enjoy those things?)
The things you think about. (What books do you read? What shows do you watch? What discussions do you have? What interests you? Why does that interest you? How do you act on that interest? Does it drive you to curiosity? To travel, meet people, and explore?)
Okay I’m rambling.
But I’ll share a simple example:
I used to get an Iced Capp literally every time I drove past a Tim Hortons. It’s a great drink. One of the all-time best. But it’s also empty calories, loaded with sugar, and generally not good for you.
Initially, I would only get them on long drives. I’d rationalize it as an ‘energy boost’.
Then when I had kids (that’s you, Everett!), I often didn’t get enough sleep. So I took my ‘long drive’ habit and extended it to a similar scenario: I need an energy boost every day. Three years later, I’d gained 15 or so pounds with that habit, along with a few similarly rationalized ones.
Cognitively, I’d taken a shortcut:
Low energy → Get an Iced Capp
But that shortcut actually created a habit that failed me – because it wasn’t the most effective energy boost, nor was it a long-term solution to the problem.
I share this example because it’s easy for us to short-cut our decision making into: Real Problem → Temporary Solution. And then, over time, our temporary solution becomes a long-term habit that’s actually a really ineffective solution. So…
Understand your triggers, and understand your actions. Try to step back once in a while and take a broader view. Understand what habits are good, long-term habits – and sustain those. And understand which habits are bad, short-sighted swings at a solution – and pick one or two to fix once in a while.
Again, not to demand perfection of yourself… just to make yourself a little bit healthier, happier, and more effective in your pursuit of the things you actually want.
3. Learn how to throw a football.
(Tom Brady Video // The Practicing Mind)
Okay… I don’t actually care if you learn how to throw a football. But you know that your dad loves football, so this is the video I’m sharing to illustrate a bigger idea:
Care about how things are done.
Don’t just aimlessly do the thing. And don’t be so impatient to be “good” at something that you rush it. Spend time thinking about the process. Improve your technique. Slow things down. Try to become better.
Learn. Practice. Play.
And being comfortable not being good at something along the way.
That combination is one of the greatest sources of joy in the world. Whether it’s music, dance, art, writing, sport, cooking, or anything else…
So watch that Tom Brady video on how to throw a football.
He’s the best at it, ever, and he achieved that without having a unique gift. He put in the work. He out-learned others. And even after retirement he’s still a student. Here’s a funny video of him learning how to skate as an adult. I think both of you skate better than him at nine and six years of age… but that doesn’t matter. He’s starting. He’s learning. And if he wants to, he’ll keep improving with practice!
You’ll need to start new things when you’re older, too. Just this spring, I’ve started to barbecue for the first time. I’m 40 years old and I just cooked my first steak last week. You guys loved it!!!
Learn new things.
It’s not always as easy as just doing the things you’re already great at, but it’ll add flavor and joy to your life – and colour to the canvas of your experiences.
4. Things change. Be adaptable.
(The Drunkard’s Walk // The Obstacle Is the Way // Mindset)
A tree grows. Leaves turn green, and then yellow, or orange, and fall to the ground. But the tree continues to provide fresh air for everything around it. Maybe a squirrel makes its home there, or a bird.
And maybe the tree is chopped down and manufactured – creating wood for homes, or paper for art, or a table for my computer where I’m typing this message.
A city grows. A city falls. Everything changes.
Health. Relationships. Jobs. Finances. Status.
Beyond that – the really unsettling part, at times – things change with a beyond-believable amount of randomness.
Shit happens.
When the pandemic hit in 2020 – it changed how the world operated. People stayed home for months. You had to be isolated to prevent the spread of a disease that we didn’t have enough information on, other than scary information.
Your Uncle Jordan had a business doing audiovisual for conferences and trade shows. And… that halted. Randomly. Unexpectedly. Everything he’d built for years was no longer a source of income. Meanwhile, the business I work for benefited greatly. Online music lessons. Everybody was at home looking for new hobbies to fill the time. So he randomly lost. And we randomly won.
Now… the point of acknowledging randomness isn’t to feel like you’re out of control. Instead, it’s to know that you can react and adapt to the things beyond your control with persistence, creativity, and positivity.
Your Gramps often said: if I became a quadriplegic, I’d find a way to do amazing things. And actually, there’s a man named Rick Hansen, from Williams Lake, who was paralyzed from the waist down and still wheelchaired across 40,000 kilometers and 34 countries, as well as coaching youth sports and winning six paralympic medals.
Adaptability is a mindset.
It starts by building an internal engine that sees obstacles as opportunities – and roadblocks as a chance to forge a new path around. So don’t take bad luck personally. Find a way to blossom in a different way, to find another purpose, or as I always tell Evelyn: Shine bright on a cloudy day!
5. Consider other perspectives.
(The Righteous Mind // The Demon-Haunted World)
It’s easy to develop a tribal mentality. Our brains seem hardwired to find comfort in it. And so we cheer for the Seattle Seahawks and hate the San Francisco 49ers.
Tribalism forms connections. It strengthens relationships. And it signals trust.
But…
Sometimes it’s kinda bullshit, too.
I’d simply caution you from always looking at life through a lens of ‘Us vs Them’. The other team is usually just another group of guys and girls who like the same thing, but they’re from another place.
Or in religion, or politics – more often than not, it’s just people trying to do their best.
That’s not to say there isn’t an objective right and wrong, good and bad. But there’s also, more often than not, a lot of gray. And it’s worth taking a step back and considering other perspectives – having conversations, asking curious questions, or accepting critical feedback.
We live in a big world. Be curious. And if you ever feel like everybody around you thinks exactly like you do – buy a ticket for a concert you’ve never heard of, travel to a place you’ve always wondered about, and explore with an open mind!
6. Learning is not memorizing information.
(The David Senra Podcast)
The world is filled with information. And so often in school, we’re rewarded for our mastery of memorization.
The history test where you remember all the names, dates, and events. Or the science test where you need to know all the parts of the cell.
Those are really good and useful things.
And I love that Everett’s friends call him “the human calculator”. You’ve memorized 60 digits of pi, can solve a Rubik’s cube in under a minute, and effortlessly ace your spelling tests – without knowing how hard that would’ve been for me at your age.
When you were 2 years old, you had all the stats memorized for a pile of 200 hockey cards – that I could shuffle in any order and you could recall at a glance.
I’m consistently amazed by each of your passions and talents. So I also want to share a bit of guidance from David Senra – “Learning is not memorizing information. Learning is changing your behavior.”
You know I work for a music education company – where the job is to teach people to play music. And, of course, a big part of the product is a transfer of knowledge. “Here is how you do that thing”. But the bigger aspect is inspiring a student to pick up their instrument, to spend time on the repetition, to put in the work, and to return again.
Information is everywhere.
But learning thrives when it meets action, focus, and discipline. (And that usually works better when you enjoy the process more than the outcome.)
7. Crawl through mud
(Grit // Mindset)
Everybody celebrates your highlights.
When you win the game, win a trophy, or do great on a test. But your character is built & defined by how you handle the lowlights. So I’ll share two of mine.
First: I remember my first-ever failed test. I was in Grade 6. Up to that point, school was always easy for me. I’d skipped Grade 3. I never really needed to work hard at anything. It was just easy.
And then I had a science test that I totally, totally failed. I think it was 18/40. And I had to bring that test home to my parents! I knew they would be soooo disappointed. I also knew that I hadn’t really deserved anything better.
So I remember saying to myself: “In 10 years, this won’t matter.”
And I’ve found that mentality to be extremely useful ever since. Like, it’s not meant to say “this doesn’t matter” and then keep failing. But instead: I can fix this, I’ll do better next time, and one failure doesn’t define anything. And sure enough, 10 years later, that failure didn’t matter.
Second: In college, I had some health struggles. These health struggles really messed with my head. They shook my foundation a little more than I could handle. And they made me an exceptionally cynical, angry, self-focused person.
At my worst, I broke into an administration building to steal some petty cash. A seriously stupid, selfish, and embarrassing decision and stage of my life. And I’m grateful I was caught, because it forced me into an action point. That happened, so what am I going to do about it?
I served 200 hours of community service – most of which was shoveling show and scraping sidewalks in -30 degree weather. But I enjoyed that. It gave me some time to breathe and think. And it felt like a chance to show up and make amends. But the more painful punishment was the self-reflection on what I’d become – and knowing that I’d lost a lot of trust and hurt a lot of people who had faith in me.
I’d always thought I was a pretty great person, but I couldn’t deny that the evidence of my actions said otherwise. So… I told myself again, “In 10 years, this won’t matter.”
I knew I’d be willing to put in the work to overcome it.
Sometimes problems are too big to fix quickly. And you might wish you could just press ‘reset’ and pretend it didn’t happen. Or hide and hope it goes away. But you can’t run from who you are or what you’ve done. A good life is built on transparency.
So, instead, take your biggest challenges as an opportunity to crawl through mud. Show up – one day at a time – and do your best.
It’s like that saying: “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time.” There are some things soooo big that it’s not even worth coming up with a plan. There’s no simple solution, there’s no clear path, and it can freeze you in your tracks. And the worst part is, when you’re in it, it often feels like the world wants to keep kicking you back again. But keep crawling, anyways. Keep pushing forward.
In 10 years, your biggest failures or setbacks won’t matter – but your daily efforts will, and you’ll find joy on the other side if you’re willing to crawl through mud.
8. Reflection & Gratitude
(The Resilience Project)
Life wants to be busy.
And there’s this constant urge to fall into the “if and then model” – If I get this, then I’ll be happy. So we chase after a better car, a bigger house, a more successful business, a cool vacation, or a fancier whatever.
I always laugh at your mom’s keen ability to see something that could be better. We could be sitting in a room, alone, on a Friday night just unwinding and having a drink – and she’ll spot a door mat that needs to be replaced!
And she’s always right, too.
Your mom is the reason your rooms are painted cool colours, you have new backpacks when yours are worn out, and you get new shoes when they don’t fit anymore. I’d just look at you wondering why you’re not willing to bend your toes. Or confused on why the holes in your jeans really matter if they still fit.
But, also…
And I don’t think this contrasts anything above. But… there’s just something about being content.
I’m not meaning content in the sense of being un-driven, or lacking passion. But content because you’ve done your best and you really don’t need much. Content, like, knowing I was just as happy renting a basement suite for $600 as I am in a 3,000 square foot house. Or content wearing this blue & purple tie-dye hoodie a couple times a week for the past 12 years because… I like it.
The book I linked to is really powerful. It’s quite the story. And the author talks about happiness being a blend of three things:
Gratitude - Focusing on the good things we have more than things we don’t.
Empathy - Connect with how others might feel. Help in pain, feel their emotions, celebrate their joys, and contribute towards positive experiences.
Mindfulness - Be present. Take time to pause, and think, and dwell – less on the past and future, and more on the now.
Sometimes I think to myself: isn’t it amazing that I don’t just get to LIVE with air in my lungs and eyes that can see… but also, as a human. And not just as a human, but a human in the year 2025! And beyond that, in Canada – in safety, with pretty decent weather, with lakes and mountains surrounding us and access to medical resources, and utilities, and so many other conveniences.
And I know I saw happiness, too, when I visited small villages in the mountains of Guatemala to build outhouses in 2002 – and saw families living in homes made of mud and straw, with no electricity or running water. But there was still joy.
Anyways, people will say that gratitude comes from daily practice – some will say to write in a journal, others will say to meditate. I’ve never really had a ritual for it. Maybe just going for walks, or driving with no music once in a while?
I guess, the thing I’d want to share here – is to pay attention to the present. Find moments of joy and wonder – and lean in for a moment. Pause. Make that moment mean something. Appreciate the view.
Maybe that’s a tequila shot. Maybe it’s a celebration with friends. Or maybe it’s just a smile that sits on your face for a few moments on a busy day. It’s yours to control – and it’s yours to enjoy. So don’t get yourself in such a damned rush that you miss it.
9. Find Build your purpose
(Man’s Search For Meaning // The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck)
Everybody’s searching for the meaning of life.
Victor Frankl says “Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to find meaning in life.”
And you’ll see all sorts of philosophies around answering that big “meaning” question. You’ll likely feel a pull, from time to time, that drives you into action and adventure – that allows you to overcome hardships.
But other times you might not feel that pull.
And you might wonder: What’s the point of anything if we’re all just going to die one day anyways? And they say the Sun might expand in a few billion years and engulf earth? But even beyond Earth, they say the universe itself will likely end in a Big Freeze, or Big Rip, or Big Crunch. So what’s this all about?
I guess, the best answer I’ve found → is that you get to create your own point.
Mark Manson says: “I kind of hate the term ‘find your purpose’ because it implies that it’s hiding under a rock somewhere. When really, purpose is something you earn through experiment and sacrifice. You don’t find your purpose. You build it, brick by brick, mistake by mistake.”
So I guess the message here is: start things.
Life’s scary if you’re trying to aim for perfection. Or worried about how hard something might be. Everything is hard. But you can’t go through it without swinging for something to happen.
Start relationships. Start marriages. Have kids!
Start hobbies. Start businesses. (Or just join a cool one like I did.)
Even in your grief, or burnout, or failure, or existential dread – start asking yourself questions that will guide you into action.
Why me? → How can I respond to this?
What’s the point of this → What can I do with this?
Why did I lose this? → How can I honour it now?
I wish I could just hand you a life filled with meaning and purpose. But I can’t. It’s yours to explore, chase, and build.
10. Know yourself
(The Inner Compass // The Mountain Is You)
I’m sitting in an airport in Orange County, California.
We’ve just finished three days at Disneyland filled with thrill rides, magical parades, and tasty treats. Mommy is browsing shops with Evelyn, and Everett’s next to me playing Steal a Brainrot on Roblox.
Life is easy when it’s easy.
And so far your life has been mostly decided for you. You didn’t get to choose where you live. You need to go to school every day. And your hobbies are mostly inherited from either the things your parents love or chose to introduce to you. And, your life experience has been protected, as it should be at this age. Nothing that can go wrong has the chance to build deep roots to weigh heavily on your growing hearts.
But at some point, your lives will be filled with big decisions – and you’ll want to stretch your own wings and find new experiences. New friends, new places, new adventures. Some of those things will be thrilling and some of them will be painful. Inevitably, you’ll make mistakes along the way. You’ll take too big of a risk, you’ll say the wrong things (or do the wrong things), and you’ll attempt to find purpose or validation in the wrong ways.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll make some decisions that cause the ground under your feet to rattle around once in a while. So, my best advice to you is:
Know yourself.
Know what you want and why you want it. What gives you a spark? Who makes you feel great? What do you wish you could somehow achieve, one day? And how do you align your actions towards those things?
Every once in a while, it takes a little extra soul searching to figure out what makes you ‘you’. What do you value even when it’s not immediately rewarding?
You’ll watch a million other people around you chasing a million different things. But it’s worth taking a little extra time to make sure your compass is aimed towards your destination. As your Great Grandpa Kettner once told your Gramps:
“When you get where you’re going, where will you be?”
There’s a guy named Dan Sullivan who coaches entrepreneurs (like your Gramps and Uncle Rick) who has a bunch of great books: The Dan Sullivan Question, The Gap And The Gain, and The Laws of Lifetime Growth. And he has this one saying that’s always resonated to me: Never compare your back stage to somebody else’s front stage.
In business – your front stage is everything that your customer sees, touches, and experiences, and the backstage is where all the hard work happens to create it. But it’s no different in our personal lives – where you see everybody’s front stages of social media photos, achievements, cars, homes, and highlights but you don’t see the back stage of their relationships, finances, hobbies, practice, and overall effort.
Focusing on the front stage without seeing the back stage is like watching somebody eat ice cream without watching them earn it at the gym. The front stage is where the fun happens – but it’s earned by building a strong foundation.
Know your values.
Build a life that makes sense for you. Invest in things that serve you – whether it’s friendships, a fireplace, a chair that feels right, a room where you can write, a place to live that’s close to the things you love to do, a vacation spot that helps you recharge, or a career that makes you proud.
You are the master of your life. But it all starts by knowing yourself.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
